Cai Shahar
Cai Shahar is a minor character from the world of Medieval. He did not appear in the actual game, but appears in side material. He is a fireknight for House Jade, specifically the Right Wedge (second-in-command) of the third Wing. History Cai was born as a slave in Courdon, likely in the province of Seguier, right along the Talvace border. His masters, the Armels, owned an iron refinery, in which Cai was put to work with a number of other slaves as soon as he was old enough. Though there was some degree of rotation in duties, for the most part every slave had one main task; in Cai's case, that was removing slag from molten iron. Both the slag-remover and splashes from the molten iron earned Cai many burns in his time on the refinery, most of which scarred due to improper medical care (and in the case of the splashed iron, additional stress to the wounds from picking out any cooled metal). When he was about fifteen years old, Cai was very badly injured by a large splash of molten iron on his left jaw. The subsequent burns left him in excruciating pain for several days, but also shocked Cai into realizing that if he remained in the refinery, he was going to die sooner rather than later, and that his only chance to survive was to escape the refinery all together. Further encouraging Cai's desperation to run away was the threat of Valerian Armel, who became especially violent toward Cai after discovering that he had burned himself badly enough to make himself an ineffective worker. One of these violent episodes lead to a break in the fence around the Armel's racehorse pasture and barn; this gave Cai an opportunity to escape the refinery on the back of one of the racehorses, and begin his journey north. Though he made it into Corvus , and even benefited from the kindness of strangers leaving items out for runaway slaves to take, he also fell afoul of a drugged, enchanted gruel left by slavehunters stationed in a southern Corvus village. Cai manged to get away from the village, but the slavehunters knew their trap had been sprung and caught up to him on the Ash Road. Before they could take him back to Courdon, a fireknight named Kendrick Leighton and his phoenix, Shachar, swooped in to rescue Cai and kill the slavehunters. With a bit of struggled due to the language gap, Kendrick convinced Cai to let him take him to Solis and the fireknight base, something he was especially motivated to do as the slave was suffering a fever from exposure to the near-nightly Corvus rains. Cai, who had taken a strong liking to Shachar, agreed. At the fireknight base, after an encounter with a shy, younger phoenix, Cai was taken to see a Lieutenant Grey, who could speak High Courdonian. Once Cai had been given some time to receive medical care and rest from his trials, Grey offered Cai a place in the fireknights, in part because Cai was the one person whom Tamir, the young phoenix who had been relatively friendly toward him, seemed interested in. Cai agreed, took as his surname a slightly modified version of the name of the phoenix who saved him from the slavehunters, and spent two years learning Kythian from various High Courdonian-speaking fireknights, physically recovering somewhat from his years of malnourishment and abuse, and working in the mews as something of a combination falconer and stablehand, as well as a janitor, before formally joining fireknight training. By this point, he was eighteen and about two years older than nearly all the other students. When he completed his fireknight training, Cai and Tamir were officially assigned to the third wing. Only two years later, Anders Escalus was promoted to Lieutenant of the wing. Being very young for the position, Anders faced some opposition from many of his new subordinates. Cai, however, being two years older than all of his training companions, knew that age does not necessarily guarantee or negate experience, and in addition to knowing that the higher-ranked officers were not likely to give the position of Lieutenant to someone they didn't feel could handle it, was willing to give Anders a chance to prove himself. As far as he was concerned, Anders did a fine job leading the wing. Much to Cai's surprise, he was chosen to be the wing's Right Wedge, a second-in-command position, about a year later. Personality Cai is almost always very reserved, stoic, and quiet. Being reared in an environment where speaking his opinions, saying the wrong thing, or in some cases, speaking at all, could be punished, Cai has always been very careful with his words, phrasing, and tone, often opting to show as little as possible and tending to take noticeable pauses before responding. This careful economy with words was likely carried over into his Kythian as well, in part by necessity due to how few words he knew at first. While he will argue a point to the ground if the alternative is not martially sound, more often Cai chooses to speak briefly or not at all. It's also rare for him to show much emotion, and he is in fact quite good at pushing emotions aside so that he can consider a situation more logically. Despite what he may show, however, Cai is far from unfeeling and heartless. He appreciates almost beyond words how much better life is in Kyth than it was in Courdon, is very close to his phoenix, and cares very much about the safety and welfare of his wing and the people he is charged with protecting. Quite understandably, he is incredibly sympathetic to the plights of slaves, especially runaways, and holds those who try to help them in high esteem. He also has something of a natural talent for bonding with and reading the moods of animals, something that leads him to sympathize with them a great deal. Cai harbors as well a deep-seated - though even he will admit, unreasonable - guilt for not being able to rescue the entire refinery, and for the trouble he likely left in the wake of his escape and for whoever had to replace him. In addition to his talent for making friends with animals, Cai is surprisingly good at visually-oriented tasks; he's a good cartographer and map-reader, and entertains himself in his spare time with geometric and scrambled-picture puzzles. Appearances Break of Dawn - 1296 - Cai's escape from Courdon and his adoption by the fireknights. A Chance to Help (Part 1) - Autumn 1309 - Cai is informed by Anders Escalus of a strange request that has come to the wing - a translator from the elven city of Nid'Aigle wants to learn Low Courdonian in order to help escaped slaves who come into the city. Despite some wariness, Cai sympathizes with the motivation and agrees. He meets Ophelia Braham, the half-elven translator in question, and the two become friends as the lessons go on. Collaborative fic between Shinko and Tiger. A Chance to Help (Part 2) - May 1310 - Cai and Ophelia attend the Restoration of the Walls festival, enjoying art displays, dancing, and helping to repair a mosaic in - for Cai, at least - a rare opportunity to simply have some fun. The two's growing friendship starts to become more emotionally involved than Cai had realized, however, as Ophelia shares some personal discomforts with him and Cai is surprisingly flustered by a compliment. Collaborative fic between Shinko and Tiger. Crisis in Kine - June 1310 - The third wing of the Jade fireknights goes into Kine to stop raging wildfires. Things go well until Cai and Anders find a village in the wake of an oncoming fire, and must think and act quickly to save the town and themselves. (Collab between Tiger and Shinko) A Chance to Help (Part 3) - June 1310 - Cai returns from fighting the Kinean wildfires, and notices Ophelia at the edge of the barracks collapsing from relief. Worried and confused, Cai finds her at her inn and Ophelia shares the story of her father's death and her brother's injuries, which has left her with a fear of fire and of people she cares about being hurt by it. Ophelia tries to cover up her distress, but at Cai's insistance that he wants to be there for her, she lets him comfort her. Collaborative fic between Shinko and Tiger. A Chance to Help (Part 4) - 1310 - Cai introduces Ophelia to Tamir and Mirja in preparation to help decondition Ophelia's fear of fire. The pleasant greetings and playful antics are quickly subdued by Cai panicking over Ophelia complimenting him, leading to the later being hurt. The two shared their feelings - Ophelia's hurt at being barred from helping Cai, and Cai his battle with still-lingering pieces of his slave mentality. A Chance to Help (Part 5) - 1310 - Summary coming Bruises - 1310 - Summary coming A Chance to Help (Epilogue) - Wishing You Were Here - During the summer of 1311, Cai and Ophelia are living across the province from one another, but keep in touch through regular letters. What begins as another summer of worrying but not overwhelming drought quickly turns into a summer of chaos when things go wrong in their respective homes. (Ongoing roleplay between Tiger and Shinko) Sweet As Honey - Cai visits Ophelia in Nid'aigle for the summer solstice festival, where he gets to meet Sieg, Gavin, and some elven animals, and enjoy some romantic time with Ophelia. There may or may not be bloodmages involved. Collaborative fic between Shinko and Tiger. AUs Bad End probably does not go well for Cai! Relationships Ophelia Braham Ophelia Braham’s search for a tutor in Low Courdonian eventually put her in contact with Cai, and from the start Cai appreciated her very noble intent behind learning the dialect - to help runaway slaves who wound up in Nid’aigle. Though Cai started out as reserved with Ophelia as with everyone else, he became intrigued by the half-elf’s intelligence and wide breadth of knowledge, and eventually they began to have more casual conversations. Soon enough, the two considered each other friends, much as a surprise as this revelation came to Cai. The more comfortable they became in each others’ company, however, the more often Cai found himself flustered and emotional over compliments and gestures from Ophelia. He attributed these to his inexperience with friendship, even as they grew stronger and edged more and more toward touches of affection - only when Ophelia admitted her own romantic feelings for Cai did the repressed former slave realize that was what his feelings were, too. Cai greatly admires Ophelia’s intelligence, compassion, and emotional strength (though Cai knows the latter has been in high demand for years from others in Ophelia’s life, leading him to want to be a safe, steady harbor for Ophelia to come to when she’s had to be strong and composed for too long). Her willingness, even eagerness, to share accept and give physical contact absolutely thrills him. Unsurprisingly, Cai’s slave-raised psyche can cause occasional difficulties between the two, but they can be talked out and certainly Cai makes as much effort as he can to correct his mistakes. Anders Escalus Though Cai and his Lieutenant are not precisely close enough to be called friends, they've worked together as commander and second-in-command of their wing for several years, and have grown to trust one another and admire the others' skills. Cai considers Anders an extremely capable leader, and appreciates his genuine if not often displayed care for his wingmates. Anders is one of the few people who knows Cai's origins, as Cai informs his immediate superiors of his former social standing to avoid any potential trouble resulting from uninformed assignment, and much to his relief, Anders does not hold this at all against him. His respect for the man aside, Cai does know that Anders isn't perfect, in particular prone to overworking himself or taking on tasks that are logically best left to those below him in rank. Cai considers part of his job to be ensuring Anders doesn't damage his health with this tendancy. Tamir Coming Category:Medieval characters Category:Non-game characters Category:House Jade Category:Courdonians Category:Corvids